Shamar Rinpoche points out that there is very little written about the 10th Karmapa and so this book is an extensive biography of the tenth Karmapa.

"This book is divided into three parts. The first surveys Tibetan history from the 13'h through the 17'h centuries. It provides the context for the biography of the Tenth Karmapa in the second section. My main sources for this section are the English and especially the more detailed Tibetan version of Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa's Tibet: A Political History. Shakabpa was Tibet's Secretary of Finance from 1930 to 1950 and the current Dalai Lama's official in New Delhi until1966. Even though an English transla- tion ofShakabpa's Tibetan text became available in English in 2010 under the title One Hundred 7housandMoons (see bibliography at the end of this book), my quotes from Shakabpa are my own translation."